The Speech: Ronald Reagan, 27 October, 1964

THERE is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace - and you can have it in the next second - surrender.

Admittedly, there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the spectre our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face - that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand - the ultimatum.

Where, then, is the road to peace? You and I have the courage to say to our enemies: "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.